Irvine

directress. In October 1869, with two sisters as
aides, she prepared for the reception of found-
lings at a house on East I2th Street. Within a
year the capacity of those quarters was exceeded
and a residence on Washington Square was ob-
tained. The city then granted a site on Lexington
Avenue at 68th Street and the state legislature
appropriated $100,000 for a building on condi-
tion that a like amount should be raised by sub-
scription. That sum, large for those days even
in New York, was secured by means of a com-
munity effort in which many elements of the
city's population took part and in which Sister
Irene's personality contributed to the final suc-
cess. The Foundling Hospital, as it was legally
named, expanded with the growth of the city. In
Sister Irene's lifetime the buildings and equip-
ment came to represent a value of $1,000,000. On
the twenty-fifth anniversary, the number of chil-
dren whose lives had been saved was estimated
at nearly 26,000.

As a preparation for her task the directress
had personally visited every like institution of
any importance in this country and had studied
the systems then employed abroad. Soon after
beginning work in New York, however, she
found that she would have to develop methods
of her own. Whenever a mother herself brought
a child to the asylum, Sister Irene tried to per-
suade her to remain at least three months, giving
the child her own care; rooms were provided for
such mothers. If children taken to the Hospital
were not reclaimed by a parent, the institution
encouraged their adoption by families that had
been carefully investigated by agents sent for
the purpose. For children still in the Hospital's
care, women were employed to act as foster
mothers in their own homes, and thus some of
the evils of institutional life were avoided. In
later years Sister Irene founded a day nursery
for the children of working women, a branch of
the Foundling Hospital for delicate or convales-
cent children, and a tuberculosis hospital known
as the Seton House.

[Anna T. Sadlier, "The Mother of the Foundlings11
in Ave Maria (Notre Dame, Ind.), Oct. 10, 1896, pp.
449-55; The New York Foundling Hospital, biennial
report for 1896-97 (1898), with portrait; N. K. Times,
N. Y. Tribune, N. Y. Herald, Aug. 15,1896.]

W—m.B.S.

IRVINE, JAMES (Aug. 4, 1735-Apr. 28,
1819), Revolutionary soldier, son of George and
Mary (Rush) Irvine, was born in Philadelphia.
His father, an emigrant from the north of Ire-
land, died when James was five years old. Very
early he manifested a desire for a military career.
At the age of twenty-five he was an ensign in
the first battalion of the Pennsylvania provincial

Irvine

regiment (May 2, 1760). On Dec. 30, 1763, he
was promoted to captain. This period of his mil-
itary service was spent along the northern Penn-
sylvania frontier in Northampton County. In
1764 he served under Col. Henry Bouquet [q.v,]
in the expedition against the Indians northwest
of the Ohio. One of the first to embrace the pa-
triot cause at the outbreak of the Revolution, he
was a delegate to the provincial conference at
Philadelphia, Jan. 23, 1775. In the fall of that
year when the first battalion of Philadelphia As-
sociators was organized he was chosen captain,
and on Nov. 25 following, when field officers
were selected by Congress, he was commissioned
lieutenant-colonel. On Dec. 4, 1775, he was or-
dered by Congress to lead part of his battalion to
Virginia against Lord Dunmore. He returned
early in 1776, in time to accompany his entire bat-
talion to Canada under Col. John Philip de Haas
to join General Benedict Arnold. He served in
the Canadian expedition until the fall of 1776,
when he was given the rank of colonel in charge
of the 9th Pennsylvania Regiment (Oct. 25,
1776). On Mar. 12, 1777, he was transferred to
the 2nd Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, dissatisfied
at seeing men younger in the service promoted
more rapidly, and believing that Congress would
give him no higher rank, he resigned from the
Continental Army, June I, 1777.

His resignation apparently did not dim his en-
thusiasm for the American cause, for on Aug. 26,
1777, he accepted the appointment of brigadier-
general of militia from the Pennsylvania Coun-
cil and was given command of the 2nd Brigade.
During the battle at the Brandywine, his brigade
was stationed at Wilmington, and at German-
town he was with General Armstrong on the ex-
treme right of the American army. While Wash-
ington was at Whitemarsh, near Philadelphia,
with the main army, Irvine was sent (Dec. 5,
1777) with six hundred men on a skirmishing ex-
pedition against the British. A sharp engage-
ment followed at Chestnut Hill, and in the melee
his horse fell under him, three fingers were shot
from his left hand, he suffered a contusion in his
neck resulting in a wound from which he never
entirely recovered, and his militiamen fled, leav-
ing him a prisoner in the hands of the British.
He was taken to Philadelphia, then to New York,
and finally to Flushing, L. I., where he was con-
fined. During his imprisonment he wrote re-
peatedly to Congress and the Pennsylvania As-
sembly pleading for exchange, and in December
1780 he was permitted to go to Philadelphia to
present in person petitions in behalf of himself
and his fellow prisoners. In spite of his bitter
complaints, however, he was not exchanged until

499